Music

Sunday

Jun 30, 2019 at 3:00 AM

"Help Us Stranger," The Raconteurs

Jack White’s recent solo albums have been wildly erratic, as if he were trying too hard to find an identity outside the long-gone White Stripes, his powerhouse Detroit duo with drummer and then-wife Meg White. One of Jack White’s side projects, the Raconteurs, made a couple of quick albums just as the White Stripes were dissolving, circa 2006-08, and then went silent. “Help Us Stranger” (Third Man Records) marks the Raconteurs’ return after a decade, and White folds his outsized personality into a dozen songs in a way that suggests he feels most at home in the context of a band, especially one as strong as this. The guitarist shares the songwriting load with Brendan Benson, and though they are often typecast as opposites – White as the bluesy gun-slinger, Benson as the power-pop craftsman – they blend their approaches seamlessly on a bunch of songs. There’s Benson shouting atop the ripping guitars on “Live a Lie,” while White sounds hopeful and tender on the piano-ballad “Shine the Light on Me.” The latter is indicative of the subtle twists in the best of these songs: the Queen-like vocal harmonies at the outset, the psychedelic swirl that brings it to a close. “Bored and Razed,” with White and Benson swapping vocal parts and contrasting power chords and acoustic passages. Only “Don’t Bother Me” gets carried away, reminiscent of the overly gimmicky tracks on White’s solo albums with its frantic pacing, scrambled three-part arrangement shoehorned into three minutes and outraged lyrics: “All your clicking and swiping, all your groping and griping.” The rhythm section – bassist Jack Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler – plays a crucial role, particularly in the reverberating line that Lawrence threads through “Now That You’re Gone” and the rippling groove that Keeler brings to a fierce cover of a Donovan B-side, “Hey Gyp (Dig the Slowness).” “Help Us Stranger” brims with unapologetic rock songs that mine ‘60s and ‘70s signifiers without getting stuck there. Yet it’s the ballads that give the album its unexpected emotional heft, particularly “Somedays (I Don’t Feel Like Trying),” which back in the days of free-form FM rock radio would’ve sounding great coming out of the sweeping melancholy of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Tuesday’s Gone.” And the acoustic “Thoughts and Prayers” becomes an unlikely hymn to a graying planet. — Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune

“Late Night Feelings,” Mark Ronson

Mark Ronson has a thing for ubiquity. After co-creating modern party classic “Uptown Funk” with Bruno Mars, the DJ-turned-writer-producer snagged an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy for his work with Lady Gaga on the epic ballad “Shallow” from 2018’s A Star Is Born. What Ronson’s done for an encore with Late Night Feelings might not wind up as wildly omnipresent as his past successes, but its surprisingly subtle set of melodies are pervasive in their own fashion. First, he turns collaborator-singer Miley Cyrus into her godmother, Dolly Parton, on the growly “Jolene” sound-alike “Nothing Breaks Like A Heart.” Then, Ronson and co-writer Kevin Parker of Tame Impala fame give vocalist Camila Cabello the downtempo “Find U Again.” Ronson’s teaming with King Princess on the shimmering, metronomic ballad “Pieces of Us” is lustrous and supple, as is his pairing with Lykke Li, singing the the album’s haunting title track and Alicia Keys’ poignantly soulful “Truth.” Ronson’s late night feelings may not be as contagious as those in his past, but they are stirring. — A.D. Amorosi, The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest,” Bill Callahan

“It feels good to be writing again,” Bill Callahan sings on “Writing” from Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest, his first album of new songs since 2013’s Dream River. “Sometimes I wonder where all the good songs have gone,” he wonders. But he needn’t: he’s written a mess of them for this 20-song double-album. Going back to his days recording as Smog, Callahan has favored skeptical, sardonic perspectives, often destabilized with humor. Now in his early 50s and recently married, he’s turned his sharp eye on conjugal happiness: These are thoughtful, patient (and sometimes humorous) songs about the surprises of domestic bliss and parenthood. “I never thought I’d make it this far / Little old house, recent model car / and I’ve got the woman of my dreams,” Callahan sings in his gentle baritone in “What Comes After Certainty.” In “Tugboats and Tumbleweeds,” which contains a sly allusion to Smog’s classic “Cold Blooded Old Times,” he looks askance at his past. Most songs build on intertwined acoustic guitar-picking, colored with soft keyboards or marimba or lap steel; they’re spacious and meticulous and comforting. It’s good that he’s writing again. — Steve Klinge, The Philadelphia Inquirer

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